More than $1 billion bitcoins seized by the Federal Agency (FBI). This Bitcoin is apparently linked to the official Silk Road. This is the largest cryptocurrency seizure ever within the Department of Justice.
Currently, the Justice Department is confiscating 69,370 bitcoins which are worth more than $15 thousand per bitcoin.
About Silk Road
In the past, Silk Road only use bitcoin as the only currency. Local authorities say that they use bitcoin for criminal transactions, including the sale of drugs and weapons to money laundering.
Then, the FBI closed Silk Road in October 2013 and then arrested the owner and the founder, Ross Ulbricht. Then, he stumbled into life-long prison sentences in 2015.
Federal agents found Ulbricht guilty on multiple charges. Namely money laundering, drug trafficking, and computer hacking.
“Silk Road was the most famous online criminal marketplace of its time. The successful prosecution of the founder in 2015 left the billions of dollars in question where the money went. At least some $1 billion of this criminal proceeds now belong to the US,” said the lawyer. AS David Anderson, quoting from CNN.
Cryptocurrency confiscation linked to website Silk Road
The case states that a hacker identified as ‘individual x’ in court documents stole bitcoins from Silk Road in 2013.
‘Individual x’ stole around $14 million worth of bitcoins at that time or around $200 for each bitcoin.
However, its value has jumped since then to nearly $1 billion. The legal filing said Ulbricht knew the identity of “individual x” and threatened “individual x” to demand the return of the cryptocurrency after the money was stolen.
Finally, ‘individual x’ decided to approve the confiscation $1 billion worth of bitcoin. So, he neither returns it nor uses it for transactions.
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